Deutsche Bank says robots are already replacing workers as it ramps up a plan to axe 18,000 jobs

Published; 18th Nov. 2019

Deutsche Bank is using robots to replace some of the 18,000 staff it cut earlier this year.

Financial News spoke to the bank’s head of operations for Deutsche’s corporate and investment bank, who said that using AI “massively increased productivity” in certain sectors of the business.

So far “680,000 hours of manual work” has already been saved, he said.

In July, Deutsche Bank announced a massive restructuring, axing thousands of jobs, and dissolving its equities sales and trading unit.

The bank has axed over 4,000 jobs since last year, and about 1,000 since July.

Deutsche Bank is using robots to replace some of the 18,000 staff it plans to cut, according to Financial News. Mark Matthews, head of operations for Deutsche’s corporate and investment bank, told Financial News that machine learning algorithms “massively increased productivity” and “redistribute capacity.”

The London-based news organization said that Deutsche is pushing to “automate large parts of its back-office” via a new strategy called “Operations 4.0,” as part of its $6.6 billion savings initiative over the next three years.

Deutsche Bank is having a torrid year. In July, it announced that it will cut 18,000 jobs over the next three years as well as dropping its equity sales and trading unit. In its October earnings report, the bank posted €315 million in “severance and transformation-related charges,” while net revenues fell 15%.

Matthews told FN that the machine learning tools helped to save “680,000 hours of manual work” and that it “so far used bots to process 5 million transactions in its corporate bank and perform 3.4 million checks within its investment bank.”

In what insiders called a surprising move, the bank this summer said it will keep the bulk of its equity research department despite eliminating the bulk of its stocks sales and trading division.

A spokesperson for the German bank confirmed the Financial News report, adding that it has cut 4,700 jobs in the last year, with about 1,000 of those since the announcement.

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